GIVE YOUR DOG A BONE

By Ian Billinghurst

Deals exclusively with feeding dogs. Designed for those who want easy to read, common sense guidance on feeding for maximum health, low cost and low environmental impact. Inspired by the observation that dogs and cats fed their natural whole food diet are far healthier than when fed cooked and processed foods. Contains valuable information for anyone who is involved with dogs, including vets, vet students, breeders and dog owners. Concerns the relationship between diet, health and disease in dogs. Everyone's talking about this book!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Warrigal Publishing Co
• Release date: Jan 1, 1993
• ISBN: 9781617811005

Book preview

Billinghurst.

Introduction

This is a book about feeding dogs. It will show you in simple language …..

• How easy it is to feed dogs.

• How to feed your dog for maximum lifelong health.

• How to save money on dog food and help protect our environment.

You will learn how to use bones, food scraps and other food items, cheaply available from your local supermarket to produce a bright, active happy dog, with a minimum of health worries.

It also challenges a widespread belief that dogs should eat processed dog food. A belief that dog nutrition is a dead issue. That the dog food companies have made the need for a book such as this totally unnecessary.

Thirty years ago this book would not have been necessary. Thirty years ago, Australian dogs were fed on bones and leftovers. Everybody knew how to do it. It was common sense. As a consequence, most Australian dogs were very healthy.

That method of feeding dogs is now lost knowledge for many dog owners. It disappeared in the mid 60’s when processed dog food became popular in Australia. In America that knowledge had largely disappeared by the mid-thirties.

When I commenced my veterinary training in the early seventies, I did so with a background of feeding dogs on bones and scraps. However, my five years of professional training taught me that I should encourage my clients to use scientifically balanced commercial dog food. Apparently, it was the best way to feed a dog.

This lead to confusion. I had no personal experience of feeding dogs on processed foods. The result was, I was never quite sure what advice, I should hand out to clients. This was difficult because the question - what should I feed my dog? - turned out to be the most common question I was asked.

However, I decided that the best defence was attack, and turned the question around. I started to ask people what they fed their dogs.

Meantime, I began to feed my own dogs on commercial dog food, something I had never done before.

Over a period of about two years, my formerly healthy dogs began to suffer numerous problems. Nothing major at first, but it was obvious that big trouble was looming. At first it was minor skin problems, runny eyes, scurfy coats, annoying itches, sore ears, anal sac problems, smelly coats, smelly faeces, smelly mouths, dental problems, the need for constant worming etc. However, with time it became reproductive problems and growth problems.

The embarrassing thing was that my own dogs for the first time ever, were suffering exactly the same sort of problems as my clients’ dogs! For me, this was a new experience. Before I became a vet I lived in the country where our dogs lived on a steady diet of rabbits, raw bones, and table scraps.

Back then, my dogs were neither wormed nor vaccinated. They became pregnant with no problems, and gave birth with ease to large litters. They were healthy dogs with a minimum of fuss.

However, all those health problems my dogs were developing, did tie in with the answers I was given when I questioned people concerning what they fed their dogs. I discovered that most people had exactly the same experience. Those who fed commercial dog food, had dogs with problems. Those who fed mostly bones and scraps had healthy dogs.

Over a period of eighteen years in small animal practice I have continued to ask that same question. I have asked the owners of both sick and healthy dogs what those dogs eat. The answers remain the same. Most of the sick dogs are fed either commercial dog food or badly designed home cooked food, while the really healthy dogs eat raw meaty bones, plus healthy food scraps.

Looking back on my experience with commercial dog food, I find it interesting that it took me as long as it did to realise what was happening. However, when I did, it did not take me long to make some changes.

In an attempt to do the very best by my dogs, and return them to a more common sense method of dog feeding, I began to read about so called natural diets. It soon became obvious that the natural diets I was reading about were in essence, what I had always fed dogs. Bones, and healthy food scraps.

The bulk of their diet became raw meaty bones including lamb and raw chicken. The rest was mainly table scraps including left over vegetables, gravy, scraps of meat, fruit and small amounts of cereals such as rice, mashed potatoes and pasta. We added eggs, liver, kidneys, vegetable oils, honey, brewers yeast, kelp powder, cod liver oil and occasionally vitamin supplements.

I encouraged my clients to do the same.

This New Diet Saw Brilliant Health

An incredible change occurred in all dogs fed the new diet.

No more skin problems, dental problems, eye problems, growth problems, reproductive problems etc., etc. Less need for worming. Their faeces were less smelly and there was less of them. Their breath became, pleasant, Feeding them was cheaper, both in the cost of the food, and because they no longer needed expensive drugs or dentistry.

Over a period of two or three years I observed the results of many feeding trials carried out by myself and my clients. They all made the same basic statement.

Raw meaty bones promote health in dogs. Processed foods and cooked foods do not.

I began to realise that most of the disease problems we vets see are caused by only one thing - POOR NUTRITION.

The question I asked myself was .. what is wrong with cooked and processed foods? Why are bone eating dogs so healthy?

I have spent the last eight or nine years seeking answers to those questions.

This book is the culmination of a long process of seeking, learning, observing, reading, interrogating, researching and doing. There are numerous well researched reasons why commercial dog food fares so poorly in the dog health stakes, and why the raw meaty bones approach works so well. Explaining all of that is what much of this book is about.

More importantly, I have discovered that.....

Feeding Dogs is so Terribly Easy

Most modern dog owners are taught to believe that feeding dogs is such a difficult task, it is best left to the dog food companies. Nothing could be further from the truth. If you can get hold of a regular supply of raw meaty bones, you will have no problems whatsoever.

In fact, feeding dogs can be explained in two or three lines: Feed your dog a diet consisting of about sixty percent raw meaty bones. The rest of the diet should consist of a wide range of good quality human food scraps. Most of them should also be raw.

If you follow that advice, you cannot help but succeed. Your dog will be healthy, long-lived and happy. Not only that, you will save money with markedly reduced pet food costs, and a similar saving in veterinary bills.

What You Will Find in This Book

Chapters 1 - 4 deal with the nutritional dilemma facing modern dogs. You will learn why most modern dog foods produce ill health. poor performance, difficulty in reproducing and short lives.

Chapters 5 to 16 examine the commonly available food items which can be used to make and keep a dog healthy. The vital role of bones is explained, together with the use of vitamin supplements.

Chapters 17 - 22 talk about the practical feeding of normal healthy dogs.

The whole emphasis of the book is to show in a very practical way how easy it is to feed dogs for maximum health and longevity using low cost commonly available food items, many of which are currently used to either make poor quality dog food, or simply thrown away.

This approach to feeding your dog is healthier for your dog, your pocket and dare I say it - for our environment.

- 1 -

Modern Dog Feeding Myths

In my search for information on feeding dogs, I discovered a whole load of nonsense. Unfortunately, that nonsense has become part of our modern way of thinking.

Go into any bookstore and you will find half a dozen books dealing with selecting, buying, training and raising dogs. When it comes to nutrition, the advice given is all much the same and based on a series of illogical beliefs or myths.

The first myth or belief concerns the inside workings of the modern dog. It goes something as follows.....

Myth Number One

The digestive system of the modern domesticated dog is much weaker than a wild dog’s, and that is why modern dogs have to be fed differently to their wild cousins.

That belief is based on nothing other than opinion. There have been no scientific studies to back it up.

On the contrary, the experiences of both scientists and numerous dog owners the world over confirm that the internal workings, including the entire digestive system, and the way food is utilised for growth, maintenance, repair and reproduction, is fundamentally the same in all dogs, both wild and domesticated.

Partly on the basis of that supposedly weaker metabolism in the modern dog, which in many people’s minds includes their teeth, there have developed two further myths.....

Myth Number Two

Dogs should NOT eat bones, and..…

Myth Number Three

All dog food should be COOKED.

Unfortunately these ideas are self-perpetuating. Dogs fed cooked and processed food and no bones will always develop a weakened immune system and poor dental health.

The next myth, number four suggests that the intelligence of the modern dog owner has declined at about the same pace and degree as the modern dog’s internal workings:

Myth Number Four

It is impossible without a university education in dog nutrition to be able to successfully feed a dog.

Because people have believed that modern dogs cannot be fed like wild dogs, they have attempted to feed dogs in all sorts of unnatural ways without bones. The results have often proved disastrous.

Those disasters have lead many people, including lots of vets to believe that feeding dogs is very difficult. This idea is reinforced by massive education campaigns launched by the major dog food companies.

Daily at meal times on television, weekly at dog shows, and monthly in various dog magazines, this message is reinforced in people’s minds, You cannot feed your dog properly.. but we can! And so is born the next myth.....

Myth Number Five

The best way to feed a dog is with commercial dog food.

As if that were not bad enough, such a myth gives rise to myth number six.....

Myth Number Six

Each meal you feed to your dog should be complete and balanced.

On the face of it, that one sounds OK. However, it too, like the other five myths is a modern idea devised for no other reason than to enable the sale of pet foods. It has no scientific basis. On the contrary, it violates many natural feeding laws, and in the process lays the foundation for sick dogs.

Ask yourself the question,., is that the way you design your own meals? Each of them totally balanced with every conceivable nutrient present which you require? Of course you don’t. No creature since life began has eaten that way.

The attempt to put all the nutrients a dog requires in one product results in much ill-health. More of that shortly.

It is by reference to those six myths or beliefs that the majority of dog owners decide how their dog[s] should be fed. The result, as I have already mentioned, is a dog population which suffers numerous unnecessary and preventable health problems.

DEVELOPING A VALID APPROACH TO FEEDING DOCS

I would like to develop with you, a new set of beliefs on which to base scientific and healthy methods of feeding dogs.

To do that, I will re-state the first myth, the one that claims the internal workings of dogs have declined dramatically since they were domesticated.

It now becomes ..…

Fact Number One

Although the mind and the outward appearance of our modern dog has changed dramatically, the internal workings, including the entire digestive system, and the way food is utilised for growth, maintenance, repair and reproduction is fundamentally the same as its wild ancestors.

• If that is so, a study of the foods eaten by wild dogs should provide us with a sound basis for feeding modern dogs.

ASKING THE DOG ABOUT FEEDING DOGS

There are six words which may be used to describe the eating habits of a wolf and other wild dogs. Those words are carnivore, hunter, scavenger, opportunist, vegetarian and omnivore.

Each of those words has great significance when it comes to deciding what our modern domestic dog can and ought to eat. Let’s start off with the word carnivore:

Your Dog is a Carnivore

Dogs, like wolves, love to eat other animals. They will eat their internal organs, their meat, their bones, everything. I am talking about all dogs. It does not matter whether you own a chihuahua, a maltese, a great dane, a poodle or a bull terrier- cross-rottweiler. They all love to eat this way.

The fact that a dog is able and loves to eat meat, bones, and internal organs etc., makes your dog a carnivore.

That means all of those different parts of an animal’s carcase can and should, form part of your dog’s balanced diet.

Your Dog is a Vegetarian

The wolf and other wild dogs are also vegetarians. One of the first things eaten by a wild dog when it kills, are the stomach and intestinal contents. These contain fermenting grass and similar plant materials.

Wild dogs and modern dogs love to eat overripe fruit of all different kinds. They scavenge round the bottom of fruit trees. They dine regularly at the compost heap.

WARNING: Do not put corn cobs or cooked bones into compost heaps to which dogs have access - both can cause obstructions.

Many modern dog owners tell me how their dogs actually fight over fruit.

During the Second World War in Europe, many dogs survived and reproduced successfully on the stomach contents of sheep and cattle. Their health was reported as outstanding.

What this means is that both fruit and vegetables should be part of a balanced diet for modern dogs. The fruit is usually best if it is overripe, and the vegetables should be pulverised until they resemble the gut contents of an animal such as a sheep or a rabbit or a deer etc. More of that in Chapter 10.

Your Dog is a Scavenger

Your dog is a scavenger. You only have to leave your dog alone with an open garbage can to find that out.

Dogs will eat and derive food value from practically anything. To a wild dog, soil eating is an important source of minerals. Bark from trees is an important source of fibre.

As scavengers or cleaner-uppers, wild dogs eat the left-overs from every animal that is killed or dies. This means wild dogs eat lots of bones which means your dog is adapted to eat, and actually requires to eat, if it is to remain in good health, lots of bones.

Dogs receive valuable nutrients from material that we humans find totally repugnant. Things like vomit, faeces and decaying flesh.

I constantly see farm dogs fight over the stinking rotten infected remains of a cow’s afterbirth.

A colleague of mine who regularly autopsies pigs told me that his dogs live almost entirely on raw pig bits, including the internal organs etc. His dogs are brilliantly healthy. He did assure me that they were wormed regularly.

Dogs also eat faeces. This habit is called Coprophagy. It may seem a revolting habit, but for dogs, it is perfectly normal.

They obviously like it, but what benefit do dogs derive from eating faeces? Faeces are a highly valuable food, consisting of the dead and living bodies of millions upon millions of bacteria.

This makes faeces an excellent source of very high quality protein, of essential fatty acids, fat soluble vitamins, particularly Vitamin K, the whole range of B Vitamins, many different minerals because of the soil in it, and a host of other nutritional factors including antioxidants and enzymes and also valuable fibre.

Many dogs that eat commercial dog food, particularly the dry dog food, have to eat faeces to stay healthy: Usually their own. Cat’s droppings are also very popular. The faeces they eat is of far greater benefit to them than the product produced by the dog food companies.

Your dog needs to be fed faeces and similar revolting material or their equivalent if it is to remain healthy.

If you do not want your dog to eat faeces, and people who kiss their dogs usually don’t, then you must provide in the diet all those nutrients which are currently missing from your dog’s diet, and which faeces supplies.

To replace faeces requires a team of ingredients like yoghurt, brewers yeast, eggs, polyunsaturated oils, an enzyme supplement and crushed raw vegetables as a source of fibre.

Your Dog is a Hunter

This means your dog also enjoys fresh food of animal origin. Dogs will eat anything that moves. This starts at a very young age with insects, beetles, ants, lizards; whatever walks or crawls or slithers into its path.

As time passes, birds and small mammals are tackled. Later on, with the help of other dogs, larger prey such as deer, sheep, goats, cattle etc. are eaten.

Your Dog is an Opportunist

This means that a hungry dog will take the opportunity to eat whatever food is available.

That is why dogs will survive and do well on an all fruit and vegetable diet, the ruminal contents of cows, sheep etc., on a carnivorous diet of whole animals, or whatever.

Many dogs survive happily on the contents of garbage cans. This has prompted many a client to ask me ... Why is it that my dog, with the best of modern food and modern medical attention gets sick while those dogs which roam the streets never seem to get a thing wrong with them?

The answer is simple. A dog roaming the streets, seeking out its own food, is living closer to nature and the lifestyle designed for it by evolution, than the majority of pampered pooches. It may not have the same foods its ancestors had to choose from, but at the same time it is not limited by what some human or dog food company chooses for it. It has a much wider choice. Much of the food is raw, including vegetable peelings, rotten fruit and some bones. It gets plenty of the right sort of exercise. Purposeful exercise in the pursuit of food or whatever it chooses to do.

Your Dog is an Omnivore

The fact that your dog is a carnivore, a vegetarian, a scavenger, a hunter and an opportunist means that your dog is an omnivore.

This means a dog can eat practically anything in the way of food. In fact, so far as eating goes, your dog is one of the most versatile creatures on earth.

Keep this word in mind when you are trying to decide whether or not you should feed a particular food to a dog. Many people say to me … I did not think you were… supposed …. able… to feed such and such to a dog. The truth is, whatever you can feed other animals can usually be fed to dogs. Whatever you can safely feed to humans may be fed to dogs.

Man and dog are both omnivores, but with totally opposite backgrounds. The dog is an omnivore with a carnivorous background. while human beings are omnivores with a vegetarian/fruitarian background.

That is why a dog has the teeth and body of a carnivore, while humans have the teeth and body of a vegetable and fruit eater, but we both have the internal workings of an omnivore.

This ability to eat similar foods is why the dog has remained a companion of man for so long. The dog will survive on just about anything we care to throw at it, even commercial dog food!

WHAT HAVE WE LEARNT FROM THOSE WILD DOGS?

The first and most obvious fact is that.....

The Dog is a Bone Eater

We must conclude that not only do dogs eat bones, but that because raw meaty bones form the basis of the diet of wild dogs, they should also form the basis of the diet of modern domestic dogs.

Dogs Eat Offal

Liver, kidneys, heart, lungs, brains etc are all part of the diet of a wild dog. If they are available, they too should form part of the diet devised for modern dogs.

Dogs Eat Vegetable Material

Sometimes in vast quantities, as when they eat the guts of a cow. They also eat fruit. Usually overripe fruit. All the vegetables they eat are crushed, finely divided and raw. What they have never eaten in vast quantities, is something we modern humans pour down their throats by the truckload, cooked grain.

Dogs Eat all Sorts of Rotten and Revolting Food

This includes such things as faeces, vomit, after-birth, rotten meat etc. This material is often full of micro-organisms, commonly known as germs. This means that what we feed the modern dog should contain the nutrients present in those rotten germy foods. Brewers yeast and yoghurt help.

Dogs Eat Fresh Raw Food

Everybody knows that dogs eat fresh foods as well as rotten foods. However, there is a big question about raw food. The fact that dogs can and will eat raw food is so self evident it hardly needs stating, and yet it is such a controversial issue, I discuss it at some length in the next Chapter.

Dogs Achieve a Balanced Diet Over a Period of Time

Wild dogs eat what they can when they can. Because of this variety, over a period of time they achieve balance and completeness. Is that the way we should feed modern dogs?

Is it better to achieve balance at every meal or is it better to do as nature does, achieve balance through a series of meals?

Common sense and experience tells me that nature may well be correct. In our dog feeding programme using bones and other natural products, we have never attempted to achieve balance at every meal. I am pleased to report brilliant health in our dogs.

On the other hand, I have uncovered a lot of evidence to suggest that by lumping all the components of a balanced diet together as do the dog food companies, and the people who prepare stews for their dogs, we cause a wide range of health problems. [See Chapter 6]

That Leaves us with Four Questions Still to Answer:

• Firstly, can a modern person feed a dog without a higher degree in dog nutrition?

You will soon realise how easy it is to feed dogs, so forget about that concern.

• Secondly, what about commercial dog food? Is it better than a dog’s natural diet?

I suspect you know the answer to that one. However, if you are still not convinced, I am confident you will be after reading Chapter 3 where I discuss in detail the pros and cons of commercial dog food.

• Thirdly, food cooked or raw .. which is best ?

The answer is raw, but do read Chapter 2 for more details.

• Fourthly, how can we know our dog’s diet is balanced?

That too will become clear as you read on.

By a careful consideration of the above you should be able to discover some guiding principles to use in feeding dogs. I have pulled out four of them. You can use those principles to make the feeding of dogs very simple, cheap and health promoting:

Principle Number One

• A dog’s diet should be based on raw meaty bones.

Principle Number Two

• Most of a dog’s diet should be raw.

Principle Number Three

• Apart from raw meaty bones, a dog should be fed on as wide a variety of foods as possible, and those foods should reflect the types and quantities of foods wild dogs eat.

Principle Number Four

• Instead of attempting to feed a dog all the nutrients it needs at each and every meal, the diet should be balanced over many different meals. The reasons for this will become clear as you read on.

These are the principles I shall use to develop healthy dietary programmes for dogs. However, before doing that, I need to talk about the various food items commonly available that may be used to feed dogs.

In the next two Chapters I discuss two questions raised in this Chapter, the question of cooked vs raw food, and the question of the problems associated with processed foods.

- 2 -

The Question of Cooked or Raw Foods?

• Most people are very confused about this. They hear conflicting advice from many quarters. Most commonly they are advised to cook their dog’s food. Rarely are they told why.

People Cook Their Dog’s Food for all Sorts of Reasons.

• One is so their dog will not take baits. Unfortunately many baits are given with cooked food.

• Others believe that dogs are supposed to eat cooked food. Somebody told them, or they heard it somewhere.

• Often the food is cooked to prevent worms or distemper or… something .....?

• Some people cannot cope with their dog eating raw meat and offal.

• Many cook their dog’s food because they believe it will become more nutritious and more easily digested.

Most people admit they have no idea at all what they should do. Sometimes they feed it raw and sometimes they feed it cooked.

SO WHY IS FOOD COOKED FOR DOGS?

There are some very good reasons why food is cooked.

Food is Cooked to Kill Germs and the Toxins They Produce

If there are any dangerous germs in your dog’s food, proper cooking will destroy them.

Cooking Your Dog’s Food Kills any Parasites

Cooking prevents the transfer of parasites from the dog’s food to humans. Particularly the hydatid tapeworm. Hydatidosis is a potentially fatal disease which can be transmitted to man from various animals including sheep, pigs, kangaroos, wallabys, cattle etc.

For more information on this problem please read Chapter 9, where raw foods and the hydatid problem are discussed.

Food Is Cooked so it can be Stored and Transported

Raw food goes off or self-destructs due to the activity of its own enzymes.

Cooking stops this process by destroying the enzymes. This allows food to be transported and stored.

Food is Cooked to Make it More Nutritious and More Digestible

Is that a valid reason? In general .. no. There are exceptions to this. Grains and certain vegetables require to be cooked for various reasons, but in most cases cooking food does not make it any more digestible or nutritious.

Cooking physically breaks food down, making it more easily got at by your dog’s digestive enzymes. This includes meat and vegetables.

Apart from that digestive aid, cooking does nothing to make food more nutritious, in fact cooked food for a variety of reasons loses much of its nutritive value.

It is popularly supposed that dogs cannot digest raw vegetables. However, if raw vegetables are physically broken down such as with a food processor or a juicer, your dog can easily digest them.

DESTRUCTIVE EFFECTS OF COOKING

Cooking Destroys Vitamins

Heat destroys many vitamins. Particularly a number of the B Vitamins and Vitamin C. Many are lost with the cooking water.

Cooking Destroys Enzymes

All living tissue contains enzymes in abundance. Enzymes are proteins which control the chemical reactions which, in their totality, constitute the life of an animal. Those enzymes are destroyed by heat.

The enzymes in raw food are now recognised as important nutrients. As nutrients they have two basic functions:

Firstly, they aid the digestion of the food they are found in, and secondly they help slow the ageing process.

The destruction of enzymes in food forces the pancreas to work harder. It has to produce more digestive enzymes. The result is several diseases in dogs, including Pancreatitis, Pancreatic Insufficiency and sugar

Reviews for GIVE YOUR DOG A BONE

[jbrundin_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A good old fashion canine diet that once adopted, you will never return to commercial dog foods.

[Jelica Proković · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Hvala vam na lepoj knjigi.sve je lepo opisano.hvala vam.jelica,iz srbije